It's been 3 weeks since I bought this viola and work has been getting somewhat busier so it's a little frustrating that I am getting less time than I'd like to practice at work, one time not even bringing it in! Imagine not being able to pursue your hobby at work!!
Anyway, this was a request by 
The first thing you might notice is that my bowing hand still looks like a calcified monkey paw. I'm getting the fluid movement in isolation, but in performance, it's just not practical yet.
The second thing you might think is that my ability seems to have gone down since before. Maybe that's how it sounds to you. The reality is, everything I played before comes to me much, much more easily now and sounds much better, but in this particular track, i wanted to try and implement 'Staccato'.
Staccato is basically short, sharp, or bounces of notes. 'ip dip dip... my blue ship' that kinda thing.
I couldn't figure it out on my own so after a while, I had to go to youtube and found there are actually three methods of doing this, each with a slightly different sound, but you should generally just go with the one that feels right first when trying all three. They all involve jolting the wrist rather than the arm, and this made an immediately improved difference from my scratchy attempts.
The man in the video then said 'It's simple, just practice staccato for 3 minutes a day for TWO YEARS and you'll have a good staccato'.
Right. The first thing I yelled at my computer is f**k you, I'll do it in a week.
Well, the point is I'm trying a technique which is not expected to be easy or accomplished after an hour of practice. I didn't get all the notes I wanted to in this video but I hit some of them. The mummified monkey paw goes against this ability so it's more important than ever for me to loosen up - the same goes for the dreaded vibrato.
Anyway, here is the longest 20 seconds of my Viola career so far - Prokofiev's 'Peter and the Wolf' theme (part of):
